Can I Become Free from the Bondage of Time?

The concept of time is very strange and wonderful. Very few understand the secret of time and yet all of us seem to be bound by time. Our life, as though, rotates around the clock. Many great thinkers regard time as the cause of the world. Is time an independent entity or is it something that the mind creates?

One place where everyone's mind likes to go into is the past or the future. These are the favourite places of the mind for travel. Even when one is in the present, the mind will travel away from the place where we are. It goes somewhere else. Mind does not like to be here and now. Mind likes to go there and then. It likes to be away from the now. And as our physical body grows, the past becomes longer and longer. A little child does not think of the past.

All our emotions are possible because of the concept of past and future. Jealousy, greed, pride etc arise with respect to time. If the concept of time is removed then emotions are not possible. But we do experience time and keep on going into the past or future. Even about Self knowledge we have a feeling that in the past I could not know the Self but one day in the future I will know it!

The question is: What about the now?When the past happened, whenever it happened, it happened as the present only. When one tells a story about him visiting some place in past and experiencing something, one had gone and experienced it at that time as the present only. Again, when the future happens, it will happen as the present. What we are experiencing all the time is the present only. We never experience the past and the future.

The past is only in the memory and that is also experienced as the present. The future is in our imagination and that will also be experienced as the present. Both of them are a present tense experience. This is very interesting.

Once a person went to Nisargadatta Maharaj and asked: When was this world created?Sri Nisargadatta asked: When did you experience the world?Questioner: Now I am experiencing the world. I experienced it yesterday. And tomorrow also I will experience it.Maharaj asked: Are you experiencing the world now?The man said: Yes.Maharaj said: The world has been created just now.

But yesterday also it was there. Yesterday is in your memory now. Tomorrow also it will be there. That is also in your mind now. How is it possible?

In your dream let us say that you meet your father and grandfather both. If somebody asks you that when were they born? You will say that my grandfather was born before 1947. My father was born later and I still later.

But really speaking, all three of you were born at the same time. In the dream, the entire dream world with all your grandfathers and fathers were born at the same time.The entire world is born at the moment you experience it.

When we are experiencing the past or the future, we are experiencing it as the present only.

The whole world depends on time. If you want to know the secret of time, whether it is real or unreal, then find out the secret of the present.

We feel that time is a constant factor in which the world comes and goes. But time is also a part of the world. It is also a concept of the mind.

Here is a riddle. Suppose you are dreaming that you are walking on the street. Somebody asks you: what time is it? You check your watch and say that it is 2 pm. Then you keep walking. Suddenly you wake up and check the time. It is 5 pm.

What is the time? Is it 2 pm or 5 pm? In just one second the time has become from 2 pm to 5 pm. Time in the dream was a part of the dream.

If suppose someone was to ask: at what time did the dream world come into existence? What time can you tell? It is a part of the dream. But we think that time is something absolute.Similarly, we now think that our waking world time is absolute and we want to know what time the world came into existence.

Without knowing the basis of time, people talk about the past and future and scientists also do a lot of research. We study the past, and within that framework the concept of time appears to be true. In your dream, your 2 pm will match everything that is happening. But it will be totally useless if you wake up or even if you wake up and again go back to sleep. You will go into another time slot.

As far as our present world of experience is concerned the time that we follow may hold good. But it is not absolute time. It is not real. It is as imaginary as the world which we are experiencing.

Sri Ramana Maharshi says that it is a laughable matter to talk about the past and future without knowing the essence of the present moment. It is like a person who wants to count without the concept of a unit. Without a unit you cannot count. If number 1 is not there, you cannot count 2, 3, 4 and so on. Everything is an addition of that unit only. Similarly, if the present is not determined, you cannot really speak about the past and future. So find out the secret of Now!

We can find out the secret of now by shifting our attention from the past and future and directing it to the present. And then shifting it from the present by going into the very presence in the present. That presence is the presence of the Self. The Self because of whose presence is the present moment. That presence is the source of the I-notion also. When we go to the very source of the I-notion, we will come to know that the Self is beyond time. There is no concept of time in the Self. It is like the cinema we watch on a screen. The movie has it's concept of time but for the screen that concept of time has no meaning.

Knowing the secret of the present itself is the ultimate state of enlightenment.